by the pathetick admonitions and apposite examples and reasonings wherewith their morality is enforced. Love to their country; the parental, filial, and conjugal charities; resignation to the divine will; superiority to the evils of life, and to the gifts of fortune; the laws of justice, the rights of human nature; the dignity of temperance, the baseness of sensuality, the proper direction of fortitude, and a generous, candid, and friendly behaviour, are enjoined in their writings with a warmth of expression, and force of argument, which a Christian moralist might be proud to imitate. In a word, I think it may be affirmed with confidence, that the knowledge of ancient philosophy and history must contribute to the improvement of the human mind, but cannot now corrupt the heart or understanding of any person who is a friend to truth and virtue.

But what have you to say in vindication of the indecency of the ancient poets, of Aristophanes, Catullus, Ovid, Martial, Petronius, and even of Persius, Juvenal and Horace? Truly, not a word. I abandon every thing of that sort, whether modern or ancient, to the utmost vengeance of satire and criticism; and should rejoice to hear, that from the monuments of human wit all indecency were expunged for ever. Nor is there any circumstance that could attend such a purification, that would make me regret it. The immoral passages in most of the authors now mentioned are but few, and have neither elegance nor harmony to recommend them to any but profligates :-so strict is the connection between virtue and good taste; and so true it is, that want of decency will always in one degree or other betray want of sense. Horace, Persius, Martial, Catullus, and Ovid himself, might give up all their immoralities, without losing any of their wit and as to Aristophanes and Petronius, I have never been able to discover any thing in either, that might not be consigned to eternal oblivion, without the least detriment to literature. The latter, notwithstanding the name which he has, I know not how, acquired, is in every respect (with the reserve of a few tolerable verses scattered through his book) a vile writer; his style harsh and affected; and his argument such as can excite no emotion, in any mind not utterly depraved, but contempt and abhorrence. The wit and humour of the Athenian poet are now become almost invisible, and seem never to have been very conspicuous. The reception he met with in his

own time was probably owing to the licentiousness of his manners, and the virulence of his defamation, (qualities which have given a temporary name to more bad poets than one); and for his reputation in latter times, as a classick author, he must have been indebted, not to the poignancy of his wit, or the delicacy of his humour, nor to his powers of invention and arrangement, nor to any natural display of human manners to be found in him, (for of all this merit he seems to be destitute), but solely to the antiquity of his language. In proof of one part of this remark, it may be observed, that Plato in his Symposium describes him as a glutton, drunkard, and profligate and to evince the probability of another part of it, I need only mention the excessive labour and zeal wherewith commentators have illustrated certain Greek and Latin performances, which if they had been written in our days, would never have been read, and which cannot boast of any excellence, either in the sentiment or composition.

But do you really think, that such mutilations of the old poets, as you seem to propose, can ever take place? Do you think, that the united authority of all the potentates on earth could annihilate, or consign to oblivion, those exceptionable passages ?—I do not: but I think that those passages should never be explained, nor put in the hands of children. And sure, it is not necessary that they should. In some late editions of Horace, the impurities are omitted, and not so much left as a line of asterisks, to raise a boy's curiosity. By the attention of parents and teachers, might not all the poets usually read in schools be printed in the same manner? Might not children be informed, that, in order to become learned, it is necessary to read, not every Greek and Latin book, but those books only that may mend the heart, improve the taste, and enlarge the understanding? Might they not be made sensible of the importance of Bacon's aphorism, "That some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested?"—that is, as the noble author explains it, "That some are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly with diligence and attention?"-a rule, which, if duly attended to, would greatly promote the advancement of true learning, and the pleasure and profit of the student. Might not a young man be taught to set a proper value on good compositions, and to entertain such contempt for the bad, as would secure

him against their influence? All this I cannot but think practicable, if those who superintend education would study to advance the moral as well as intellectual improvement of the scholar; and if teachers, translators, and commentators, would consider, that to explain dulness is foolish, and to illustrate obscenity criminal. And if all this were practised, we should have no reason to complain, of classical erudition, that it has any tendency to seduce the understanding, or inflame the passions. In fact, its inflammatory and seductive qualities would never have been alarming, if commentators had thought more, and written less. But they were unhappily too wise to value any thing beyond the knowledge of old words. To have told them, that it is essential to all good writing to improve as well as inform, and to regulate the af fections as well as amuse the fancy and enrich the memory; that wicked books can please none but worthless men, who have no right to be pleased, and that their authors instead of praise deserve punishment ;-would have been to address them in a style, which with all their knowledge of the grammar and dictionary they could not have understood.*

⚫ It must move the indignation of every person who is not an arrant bookworm, or abandoned debauchee, to observe how industriously Johannes Dousa, and others of that phlegmatick brotherhood, have expounded the indecencies of Greece and Rome, and dragged into light those abominations that ought to have remained in utter darkness for ever.—Mons. Nodot, a critick of the last century, on occasion of having recovered, as he pretends, a part of an ancient manuscript, writes to Mons. Charpentier, Directeur de l'academie Francoise, in the following terms. "J'ai fait, Monsieur, une decouverte tres-avantageuse a l'empire des lettres : et pour ne pas tenir votre esprit en suspens, plein de la joye que je ressens moi-meme, je vous dirai avec precipitation, que j'ai entre mes mains ce qui manquoit de —— Vous pouvez croire,

Monsieur, si aimant cet auteur au point que je fais &c. Vous appercevrez, Monsieur, dans cet ouvrage des beautès qui vous charmeront. Je vous prie d' annoncer cette decouverte a vos illustres Academiciens; elle merite bien, qu'ils la scachent des premiers. Je suis ravi que la fortune se soit servié de moi, pour rendre a la posterite un ouvrage si precieux," &c. If the lost Decades of Livy had been recovered, this zealous Frenchman could hardly have expressed himself with more enthusiasm. What then will the reader think when he is told, that this wonderful accession to literature, was no other than Petronius Arbiter; an author, whom it is impossible to read without intense disgust, and whom, if he be ancient, (which is not certain), I scruple not to call a disgrace to antiquity?

Still I shall be told, that this scheme, though practicable, is too difficult to permit the hope of its being ever put in execution. Perhaps it may be so. And what then? Because passages that convey improper indeas may be found in some ancient writings, shall we deprive young people of all the instruction and pleasure that attends a regular course of classical study? Because Horace wrote some paltry lines, and Ovid some worthless poems, must Virgil, and Livy, and Cicero, and Plutarch, and Homer, be consigned to oblivion? I do not here speak of the beauties of the Greek and Latin authors, nor of the vast disproportion there is between what is good in them, and what is bad. In every thing human there is a mixture of evil: but are we for that reason to throw off all concern about human things? Must we set our harvests on fire, or leave them to perish, because a few tares have sprung up with the corn? Because oppression will sometimes take place wherever there is subordination, and luxury wherever there is security, are we therefore to renounce all government ?—or shall we, according to the advice of certain famous projectors, run naked to the woods, and there encounter every hardship and brutality of savage life, in order to escape from the tooth-ach and rheumatism? If we reject every useful institution that may possibly be attended with inconvenience, we must reject all bodily exercise, and all bodily rest, all arts and sciences, all law, commerce, and society.

If the present objection prove any thing decisive against ancient literature, it will prove a great deal more against the modern. Of classical indecency compared with that of latter times, I do not think so favourably as did a certain critick, who likened the former to the nakedness of a child, and the latter to that of a prostitute; I think there is too much of the last character in both but that the modern muses partake of it more than the ancient, is undeniable. I do not care to prove what I say, by a detail of particulars; and am sorry to add, that the point is too plain to require proof. And if so, may not an early acquaintance with the best ancient authors, as teachers of wisdom, and models of good taste, be highly useful as a preservative from the sophistries aud immoralities that disgrace some of our fashionable moderns? If a true taste for classick learning shall ever become general, the demand for licentious plays, poems, and novels, will abate in proportion; for it is to the more illiterate readers that

this sort of trash is most acceptable. Study, so ignominious and so debasing, so unworthy of a scholar and of a man, so repugnant to good taste and good manners, will hardly engage the attention of those who can relish the original magnificence of Homer and Virgil, Demosthenes and Cicero.

A book is of some value, if it yield harmless amusement; it is still more valuable, if it communicate instruction; but if it answer both purposes, it is truly a matter of importance to mankind. That many of the classick authors possessed the art of blending sweetness with utility, has been the opinion of all men without exception, who had sense and learning sufficient to qualify them to be judges. Is history instructive and entertaining? We have from these authors a detail of the most important events unfolded in the most interesting manner. Without the histories they have left us, we should have been both ignorant of their affairs, and unskilled in the art of recording our own: for I think it is allowed, that the best modern histories are those which in form are most similar to the ancient models.-Is philosophy a source of improvement and delight? The Greeks and Romans have given us, I shall not say the most useful, but I will say the fundamental, part of human science; have led us into a train of thinking, which of ourselves we should not so soon have taken to ; and have set before us an endless multitude of examples and inferences, which, though not exempt from errour, do however suggest the proper methods of observation and profitable inquiry. Let those, who undervalue the discoveries of antiquity, only think, what our condition at this day must have been, if, in the ages of darkness that followed the destruction of the Roman empire, all the literary monuments of Greece and Italy had perished.-Again, is there any thing productive of utility and pleasure, in the fictions of poetry, and in the charms of harmonious composition? Surely, it cannot be doubted; nor will they, who have any knowledge of the history of learning, hesitate to affirm, that the modern Europeans are almost wholly indebted for the beauty of their writings both in prose and verse, to those models of elegance that first appeared in Greece, and have since been admired and imitated all over the western world. It is a striking fact, that while in other parts of the earth there prevails a form of language, so disguised by figures, and so darkened by incoherence, as to be quite unsuitable to philosophy, and even in